Search form

Is Yoga Demonic?

This week we focus on the question, “Is Yoga Demonic?” Along with Dave Hunt, here’s T. A. McMahon.

Tom:

Thanks, Gary. You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him. Our topic in this first segment of our program is Yoga and Christianity and more specifically the rather shocking acceptance of the practice of Yoga within Christendom. Now, why is that shocking?Well, for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that Yoga is the central practice of Hinduism, which is not exactly compatible with Christianity. As a matter of fact, its beliefs and practices couldn’t be more at odds with Christianity. Now we’ve been using Dave Hunt’s book, Yoga and the Body of Christ: What Position Should Christians Hold? as a resource for the series, which, Lord willing, we’ll wrap up, hopefully next week. Dave, last week you explained that the real goal of yoga is to awaken the Kundalini power, an alleged spiritual energy that supposedly resides within all of us, it’s like a serpent coiled at the base of the spine. And you said that when this Kundalini power is manifested, which it is at times with certain individuals that practice yoga, that it is a demonic manifestation. Now why would you say that?

Dave:

Well, the devil is called, that old serpent the devil, who deceives the whole world, he came to Eve in the garden as a serpent. It’s amazing that the devil kind of likes to be called “the serpent” he glories in this, and I think we’ve, surely we have mentioned it in the past, the serpent plays a big role in Hinduism. And in…

Tom:

Almost all the religions, all the religions in the world as well. Norse religions, Greek mythology, on and on.

Dave:

Greek mythology, the cosmic egg, symbol of the cosmos had a serpent around it. The oracle at Delphi was on a tripod, each leg of the tripod was intertwined with serpents. Ancient caduceus that we have as the symbol of modern medicine.

Tom:

So the serpent then is portrayed as something that is good, has healing benefits, and so on, a savior in many of those religions.

Dave:

Right, so however, when you awaken the Kundalini they warn you, you could have some really serious problems. And we mentioned Christina and Stanislav Grof, and we didn’t have time in the program, but in the book we tell you some interesting things about how they met. They actually met at Esalen in the Big Sur, and that was where much of today’s psychology got started. And…

Tom:

Yeah, and the New Age movement, particularly in this country.

Dave:

Big headquarters for the New Age movement at that time, and psychologists were involved in this.

Tom:

The different therapies that were developed there out of, really many of them out of Eastern mysticism.

Dave:

Let me quote from their book, because they---we’ve talked about the spiritual emergency network, they are the founders of it, why would they found it? Well, they co-edited a book titled, Spiritual Emergency, subtitled:When personal transformation becomes a crisis. And instead of suggesting that there must be something greatly amiss with any transformation that causes a crisis. The book contains 14 papers by doctors and other so called experts on the following types of spiritual crises. I won’t read all of them.We’ve got: The Shamanic Crisis, awakening of Kundalini. This is going to happen if you’re involved in yoga unless somehow you don’t really get deeply into it. Then we’ve got peak experiences where you think you are one with the universe. I’ve talked with many young men who have experienced that on LSD for example. Crisis of Psychic Opening: Suddenly you are open to all these physic powers, Past Life Experiences, Experiences of Close Encounters with UFO’s. And then the last one they mention is, Possession States. Now you would think that any practice that would lead to demonic possession---well, they don’t call it that, but this is what they’re talking about. It ought to be avoided, but transpersonal psychologists say, O, this is just a transition into higher consciousness, and you’re working out your problems from the past, and so forth, as personal spiritual growth, and yoga is supposedly a shortcut to this spiritual growth, and there must be something wrong. Let me just quote some of their website: “Spiritual experience can feel like bliss, but it can also feel like hell, it can cause hallucinations, seizures, pain, panic attacks, mania, severe depression, all the symptoms of physical and mental illness. When people suffer this way they may feel like they are going crazy and their doctors may agree. But the authors of this book think that in many cases such a diagnosis is mistaken.They urge the adoption of the new category of clinical diagnosis spiritual emergency.” And you know they have I don’t remember how many hundreds, I think there are actually a couple of thousands so-called experts, many medical doctors, many psychiatrists and psychologists on this spiritual emergency network, and you can call this number. You’re just practicing yoga and Wow! You’re flipping out, you’ve got demons trying to get in you that you can see, and you’ve got all kinds of horrible experiences. Call them and they will tell you, well, that’s okay, keep calm, you’re moving on to deeper levels of spirituality, and this is quite normal, don’t be concerned and we’ll help to guide you through this.

Tom:

Dave, this spiritual emergency network, this isn’t a group of Christians who are against this trying to bail people out, to remove them, right? In other words, we’re not making this up, is what I am saying here.

Dave:

No, we document it in the book, but this is ongoing today and has been for many years because people do come into spiritual emergencies. They come into contact with demonic entities, they have horrific experiences on drugs, or a lot of them are on yoga. So that’s just part of yoga, it comes with the product.

Tom:

Well, we have put together this series, probably will end up being 12 episodes if we finish next week, and our concern is, Dave, this stuff is in the church, that’s the shocking part. Now I want to quote 1 Timothy:4:1Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;See All..., and you tell me what you think about this application with regard to what we are talking about. “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;” This is not by extrapolation this is direct involvement with seducing spirits and the teachings of devils, right?

Dave:

They depart from the faith, if you stayed with the faith you wouldn’t have those problems. You would not be seduced, you would be following the truth of the Word of God, and Christ as your Lord and Master, the Holy Spirit indwelling. Paul says, “…the Spirit speaketh expressly,” make no mistake about this. This is not just some possibility or hearsay, this is going to happen, in the latter days they are going to depart from the faith. Now Tom, we won’t get off on that, but it’s happening in the church, departing from the faith. The revivalist, where do we want to go, to the airport in Toronto, or…

Tom:

Pensacola.

Dave:

…down to Pensacola. They have departed from the faith, and they’ve come up with all kinds—for example, C. Peter Wagner. He was professor there with John Wimber at Fuller Theological Seminary, and he’s the coordinator, he’s the head, the director of the spiritual emergency network, you could call it, for Christians, it’s called the spiritual warfare network. C. Peter Wagner says that when he was in the Philippines,—actually this was an extension of the Lozan Conference that began, Billy Graham sponsored it, originally in Berlin, and then it was in Lozan Switzerland, and it’s been in a number of places—that God called him to be the head of the spiritual warfare network worldwide. Now they are involved in all kinds of things, strategic level praying, prayer walking, mapping of territorial spirits. You remember how Paul used to do that. He got out a map and before he went to Ephesus—No, this is nonsense, never did he do that. And in Pensacola they prayed over every seat before the meetings began to drive the demons out.

Tom:

Well, they had demons up in the balcony that they would dodge these fiery darts coming from these demons, it was unbelievable. Well, they had some climb, they didn’t get to the top but, climb part of Mt.Everest because that was a special center of the queen of heaven. I mean, it’s just absurd kinds of things.

Dave:

And Tom, we have mentioned on this program, I’m quite sure, the DVD or video by New Tribes Mission: Delivered from the Power of Darkness. They held their meetings in a pagan temple where there’s demonic activity. They didn’t drive out any demons, they didn’t try to cast out any demons, they did no strategic praying they just gave them the Bible, the Word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit, and that brings people to Christ and they are delivered.

Tom:

Right, and demons flee from this kind of thing.

Dave:

Absolutely. So anyway, spirit speaketh expressly, in the latter days some will depart from the faith. That’s their problem, they’ve departed from the faith, they’ve departed from the Bible and I was going to mention that C. Peter Wagner then, what does he say? He comes right out—I’m not quoting him verbatim but very close; we do not go by the Bible, we develop our doctrine from experiences. And John Wimber said the same thing. He says, exper—, that’s how we derive our doctrine, not from the Bible, but from experiences. So now you are being deceived by demonic entities, they depart from the faith, and they give heed to seducing spirits, doctrines of devils, and they will even talk to these supposed demons in a person—well, how did you get in? Well, I got in like this and this is the way I operate—oh, okay, well then that’s the way we’ll combat you. So they get their doctrine, literally, from demons.

Tom:

Doctrines of devils. Dave, there’s another part of this that I’d like you to address—the relationship between these two. Shaktipat—We’re talking about Kundalini yoga and the spirit, supposedly at the base of the spine and a power, energy, and so on, but there is also a manifestation called, Shaktipat, which would be similar to, what some would call being slain in the spirit.

Dave:

Yeah, being slain in the spirit, of course you’re falling in the wrong direction. The soldiers in the garden fell backward when Jesus said, I Am.You are in the presence of God you fall on your face. You don’t need a catcher either but they’ve got catchers you know, and they’ve got people who have even been injured in these conferences. But nevertheless, the power of God is not something that we can command, some techniques for getting in touch with Him, although that’s what Pat Robertson has taught in his book, The Secret Kingdom for example. We go by the Word of God, and we follow the Word of God, we follow the Lord Jesus, He becomes our Saviour and our Lord. But Tom, demonic? Well, in uh, Yoga and the Body of Christ, I document it. We begin, for example, we begin with Yogi Bhajan.May 11, 2005, Special reception held at the U. S. Capitol commemorating the Congressional resolution, and that was—they unanimously passed, the House and the Senate, joint resolution praising this deceased Sikh leader for “Teachings about Sikhism and yoga.” Okay now, here’s the Congress, they’re praising this man. Now you get a little farther in the book, we tell you a little bit more about Yogi Bhajan and Muktananda, and a number of others, they were evil, demonic. And, oh they passed themselves off as being virtuous and so forth. Let me just read a little bit, this young lady, she says:“I was an eighteen-year-old hippie when I moved into [a Yogi Bhajan] Ashram…looking for a magic that would make my life pure and…heal my damaged spirit…” And she goes on, and she says: “Most of us emerged from the sixties’ hippie culture with the love of the philosophy and mysticism of India running in our veins.” And, “we prayed a lot,…we relied on Yogi Bhajan to guide us. At times we got very, very high…” (listen to this) “stoned on yoga, devotion,” And, “chanting, and vegetarianism.” Not on drugs, they got out of the drug thing, and it was even worse.

Tom:

Yeah, and of course, we are talking about reaching an altered state of consciousness here through these techniques.

Dave:

Right, right. She goes on: “The most titillating and shocking truths concerning my ex-spiritual teacher” (Yogi Bhajan) “[involve] his harem, (a harem that most of his students, of course, didn’t know he was keeping.) After I left the cult I saw that we had…slavishly committed to and trusted in a gigolo charlatan and…maintained an almost unbelievable level of denial.” Says he “was a master of Tantric [sexual] Yoga…. Within the Tantric tradition of India and Tibet…sexual energy is spiritual energy…. Yogi [Bhajan’s] greatest challenge…was not only to seduce supposedly spiritually committed women into his bed…but to keep them quiet about it for over twenty years…” But here’s one of the most amazing parts of this, Tom, listen to what she says, in spite of all of this, she’s exposing him, what a fraud and how evil he was: “Yogi [Bhajan]…gave us a taste of God in the form of various spiritual peak experiences…”—Now how are you going to get a peak exper—, a spiritual experience , a genuine experience and a taste of God from a man who is this evil?—He “…made us feel safe, loved and secure.” And you wouldn’t dare talk against him, to risk even considering the possibility that he was as evil as they realized he was—“was to invite shame and cynicism to come crashing into our lives negating all the magic and hope that we had.” Amazing! She knows how evil—and she still seems to cling to this magic, supposedly!

Tom:’

Dave, we’ve seen it over and over again. Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh, right up here in Oregon, in Antelope Oregon. Muktananda, which brings us back the Shaktipat. Talk about Michael Ray and Gerald Jampolsky. Jampolsky, the psychologist who really—of course the miracles, you can connect that with him, but Michael Ray was a professor at Stanford University, and introduced this thing into the MBA’s at Stanford, but go ahead.

Dave:

Well, long before Katherine Kuhlman, as I recall, she was the first one who began this being slain in the spirit. I witnessed it personally at her meetings.This has been going on for thousands of years, the gurus have been doing it, and they called it, Shaktipat. Now it’s a little pat, in fact Mukananda come up behind you and touch you with a peacock feather, you didn’t even know he was there, and whoosh, you are gone. Off on a…

Tom:

That’s happened to Michael Ray and Gerald Jampolsky.

Dave:

Right, off on a psychedelic journey, and filled with love, don’t need to sleep at night, you’ve got such energy, spiritual energy, and so forth. A great deception, Muktananda was one of the most evil of the gurus.

Tom:

It’s hard to say anybody was more evil than Rajneesh but he was, Moktunanda definitely was.

Dave:

Well, here in the book, Yoga and the Body of Christ, we document, they are all the same, they are all coming with the Kundalini power, the serpent, and Shakti. Shakti is Kali. People would know her as Kali, the goddess worshipped there in Calcutta. She has what, I don’t know how many, about 8 arms and a garland of freshly severed hands hanging around her neck, she’s drinking blood out of a skull. And the Hindu says, her beauty is in her terror. And she is the Star Wars force, she is the force. She is depicted like Mary is depicted with her heel on the serpent, Shakti is depicted with her heel on the neck of Shiva, who is the most powerful, supposed, of the trimurti of Gods. So, Shakti. This is what they are administering with this pat on the forehead or whatever. And Tom, I would have to say I don’t know what else it would be that these charismatic leaders, televangelists are administering. You’re falling in the wrong direction, it’s under the cover of all kinds of false doctrine and lies and false expectations.

Tom:

And greed, I mean, most of it’s for money.

Dave:

Oh, my goodness, yeah. So, they call it the “Shaktipat” here they call it, the Christians call it, “being slain in the spirit.” Now, the only slaying in the spirit I know was Anannias and Saphira, and they were really slain in the spirit, but the rest of it, it’s not biblical, but people are looking for an experience, a feeling. And this is why they get into yoga, it’ll help them relax, it will help them become more spiritual.

Tom:

Or—you know, I’m holding here, Creativity in Business, this is Michael Ray’s book that was based, it says, based on the same Stanford University course. So now we want to get more creative, we want to look within, we want to eliminate a voice of judgment, any conscience—or guilt within the conscience. We just want to be free to be creative, Dave, and NBA’s at Stanford.

Dave:

That’s a—

Tom:

Unbelievable.

Dave:

That’s a tragedy, that it comes under the cover of many things. But yoga is growing as we mentioned, and yoga, what better way to do it. And we have Christian yoga now in the church. What a delusion!

Tom:

Well, a fulfillment of prophecy—“now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.” We’re seeing it—this manifestation has been around since the garden of Eden, but Dave, in no way has it—it seems to me— impacted the church as it has in these last couple of years.

Dave:

And Tom, one of the things that concerns me, because as I’m speaking to an audience I see unbelief in their faces—is this really that bad? Is that what we’re really seeing? And I think we need to awaken, maybe you could learn a little more about it yourself without practicing it, you don’t have to do it, and help rescue some others, andpass out this book, get it to people who are involved in this, get it in your local library.

The Berean Call is available by postal mail each month for free. We are willing to send the newsletter to you by regular mail but encourage you to read it online to save printing and mailing costs. Send us a message to add or change your paper mail address.

The Berean Call is also available in a large-print edition at a nominal cost.

If you are outside the U.S. The Berean Call is available by paid subscription .